Bøker av Frank O'Loughlin

When Catholics say, 'I don't go to Mass anymore', it generally indicates something more significant than simply deciding to spend less time in church. Often, it relates to a gradual distancing form the church itself, a growing away from something that once gave meaning, shape and purpose to life. This is one of the realities that Frank O'Loughlin considers in helping us understand the nature and function of liturgy in the life of the church. Liturgy is not an 'added on' feature for faithful Christians; it is at the heart of faith, expressing how we understand the gathered community that is the People of God in our secular world. Recalling the constant development of how Christians have worshiped from the earliest times, the teachings of Trent and the Second Vatican Councils, he emphasises the need to respond to cultural and societal change in order to express his deep appreciation of the ancient principle that connects Eucharist and church. This involves informed reflection about priesthood, the words we use at Mass, the nature of signs, the emphasis on people rather than clergy, the purpose of liturgy to express our longing to make the teaching of the Gospel bear fruit in our lives and our word. The author writes with authority and insight; above all, he writes from many years of pastoral experience, aware of changes in families and society, and the perennial need for renewal, openness and self-giving in liturgy and in the church itself.

Different times and different cultures have influenced the ways in which the Eucharist has been celebrated and understood; and the action received from the Lord to be done in his memory has shown different aspects of its deeper reality in these differing human situations.We now live in times in which belief in God is no longer taken for granted and in which there are many different approaches to life and its meaning. This has its influence on those who believe in Christ as well as those who do not.This new situation invites us to present our faith in Christ differently, calling us to offer a presentation of the Eucharist that can begin on common ground with our contemporaries and in language that believers today may find inviting and meaningful.As a means of achieving this, the Frank O'Loughlin suggests that we look again at the basic things we use as signs in the Eucharist. These are things we have in common with other human beings: bread, wine, water, symbolic actions and our own bodies.These things are taken into our celebration of the Eucharist and are used as signs that take us beyond themselves into the depths of the Eucharist, that is into its very mystery.The author also points out the human grounding of those things indicated by words we use in speaking about the Eucharist: memory, presence and sacrifice.We are dealing with everyday, human things that take us beyond the ordinary from which they come, into the mystery of God among us in Christ which we celebrate when we gather for Eucharist.